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As people of faith and faith leaders from across the country, we come together in support of policies that recognize the dignity in all of us and invest in every community and family so we can all flourish.  

As our nation recovers from the devastating effects of the COVID pandemic and the resulting economic downturn, we urge you to enact legislation that is equal to the daunting challenges we face, creates a just and fair economy that honors the dignity of all people, and reckons with longstanding racial and gender injustice the pandemic has exacerbated. This moment requires a generational investment in our families and communities.

As you and your colleagues in Congress work together on this recovery legislation, we urge you to fulfill your moral responsibility to the nation by delivering the following policies:

• Cut childhood poverty in half and ensure that no worker is taxed into poverty by making permanent the American Rescue Plan Act’s expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. 
• Rescue working families from the impossible decision between caring for their children and earning a paycheck, by instituting a permanent national family and medical paid leave program, and creating affordable childcare. Without paid leave and childcare, women, disproportionately women of color, are forced to choose  between going to work  or tending to their family’s health when illness strikes.
• Ensure everyone has access to stable housing by expanding housing choice vouchers and investing in affordable housing.
• Close the digital divide, reduce inequality and expand opportunity by making high-speed internet accessible and affordable for everyone. This is essential to closing racial and socioeconomic gaps in education, healthcare and employment.
• Expand access to quality, affordable health care, improve maternal and racial health equity, by closing the Medicaid Health Gap and extending premium tax credits.
• Honor the dignity of our immigrant neighbors by building a broad pathway to citizenship for essential immigrant workers, farmworkers, people with DACA, TPS and DED, and their families. Additionally, ensure that regardless of citizenship status, everyone can access social and health programs and COVID-19 vaccines. 
• Honor the dignity of our marginalized neighbors by removing all barriers to any and all social programs for formerly or currently incarcerated people -- including Medicaid, SNAP and affordable housing.
• Makes the clean energy and climate investments we need for a safer climate, an equitable and inclusive economy, and modern clean energy infrastructure that improves the lives of all Americans.
• Save thousands of people’s lives and prevent millions from becoming sick by funding and promoting the domestic and global production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations. 

We can and will pay for these historic investments by raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations to bring fairness and equity to our tax code. This solution includes key fixes such as  raising the corporate tax rate and repealing the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. We can close loopholes and balance the scales so that everyone pays their fair share and no one is left behind. 

Now is the moment to rebuild our communities on a new foundation of human dignity and finally confront the root injustices that have left so many families more vulnerable than others. We must build back an economy that provides dignified employment for all, that respects our shared environment, and that leaves the world a better home for our children and grandchildren